


A Simple Power

by sapphireswimming



Series: Aces [2]
Category: Gundam 00
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Celestial Being, Gen, Gen Work, Gundam 00 Week 2018, Hospitals, Humor, One Shot, Patrick Colasaur is Patrick Colasaur, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:20:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphireswimming/pseuds/sapphireswimming
Summary: Patrick Colasaur was stuck in the hospital after Celestial Being ruined his big showcase for the new Enact - and if there was anything worse than having to listen to the news playing their bald guy's announcement on loop, it was getting lectured by every single person who came through the door
Series: Aces [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957048
Kudos: 3





	A Simple Power

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13734279/1/
> 
> Written for Gundam 00 Week 2018 Day 3: Prototype
> 
> Title from the Gundam 00 ending credit song _Prototype_ by Chiaka Ishikawa
> 
> Set just after Episode: s01e01 _Celestial Being_. No warnings, no spoilers
> 
> This can be read as a slightly-AU standalone fic, and is also part of Aces, a slight AU in which the Blocs make a more coordinated effort to promote their anti-Gundam fighting capabilities and the world then has to deal with Patrick Colasaur, Graham Aker, and Soma Pieres becoming celebrities

Patrick was still confined to the hospital bed, in boxers and a paper-thin vest thing that didn't seem to be doing its job if it was supposed to keep him warm. The metal rings around his biceps and calves were still cold to the touch, hours after they'd been adjusted to fit him in order to track something he hadn't been paying attention to.

The sensors attached to his chest were blinking out a strident cadence on the tower of oversized monitors that swung out next to his bed. It was tracking very quick spikes now, enough for the machine to start beeping.

The nurse who immediately appeared in the doorway to check on him just sighed and implored him not to dislodge anything again as she came around to check the monitor's settings.

He didn't really pay much attention to her, though. He was staring at the screen mounted against the wall opposite him.

It was replaying the footage of Celestial Being – not of the Gundam that so cowardly attacked him at the training grounds, just as he'd finished a shining, stellar performance through the entire training route, dazzling the higher ups from around the world with his performance with the latest and greatest machine known to mankind – it was the announcement from the freaky looking bald guy with the cane again. The clip that every station kept looping. The too-loud voice and the unblinking eyes of the man who kept saying that they were Celestial Being over and over and over again.

Patrick yelled in frustration, wishing the man would just stop talking.

"Alright, enough already!" he said to the television screen, wishing that he could somehow make the guy listen to him.

"Would you like me to turn it off?" the nurse offered, picking up the remote.

"No!" Patrick groaned in frustration. "No, I don't want you to turn them off, I want them to shut up. They're the ones who did this to me!" he told her, pointing to the screen. "Them – they're the ones who attacked me!"

"Yes, sir," she said placidly. "I'm sure they are."

"No, you don't understand," he rubbed both hands through his hair agitatedly before stretching them toward the screen because this lady wasn't listening to him at all. She was a nurse here, she should care about what put people in need of her care.

"They're the ones who put me in the hospital!" he said, turning to snag the limp wedge pillow from behind him and mash it between his hands.

"Yes, I'm fully aware you're in a hospital," she said, and she had the nerve to smile at him. "But I'm going to have to ask you to calm down."

He forced the edges of the pillow together again. When it unfolded, he smashed his face into it and groaned again. "How can I be calm when the people who did this to me are still out there? Bragging about what they've done?"

"Then I'll turn off the television," she said, reaching for the remote once more.

He yanked his head up. "But I said I didn't—" he protested.

She stared at him resolutely. "If you keep acting like this," she warned, "I'm afraid we're going to have to—"

There was a knock on the doorframe.

The captain was standing in the doorway, still wearing the civilian suit he'd donned for the morning's ceremony. Both of his eyebrows rose once he got a good look at what was happening inside his subordinate's room.

The nurse looked relieved. So did Patrick.

"Look!" he pointed at the screen. "Did you see?" he asked, as if the footage that had been looping all afternoon might disappear from the screen at any moment. "That's them, they're the ones who did this to me!" he said, gesturing to the sensors and rings and ignoring the way the pillow bounced off of his knee and rolled to a stop just at the edge of the bed.

The Captain didn't answer him, instead nodded to the nurse who pushed the pillow back to safety and gratefully left the patient in his very capable hands. After she'd disappeared through the doorway, the Captain dragged an uncomfortable looking plastic chair across the small room to sit down at his bedside.

"How," he began in that tone of voice he usually employed when he thought he was doing a good job at deciding not to give a lecture. It normally came right before he gave a lecture. Patrick was in the hospital because of that crazy new group and he was in no mood for a lecture. But the Captain continued, "How could you have been so idiotic to engage with that mobile suit when we had no information about it?"

Patrick's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, idiotic?" he asked, turning to face the Captain square on, his foot twisting in the sheets. "It was barging in on our turf," he said, "on our ceremony! _It_ was the one instigating things, not me!" he said, gesturing wildly with his arms.

"If it hadn't challenged me, then I wouldn't have had to do anything. But it did so I had to respond to it just to show it who was boss!" He slammed a fist into his other hand and ground it there.

The Captain sighed, putting his hand to his temple as he understood what was coming next.

"Because I'm Patrick Colasaur," Patrick declared, loudly enough for everyone to hear him down the hospital hallway. "And that little nobody's going to get some payback as soon as it dares to show his face back here again!" he continued, brandishing his fist toward the front door.

The Captain looked up again. "In what suit, Patrick?" he asked, voice clipped.

Patrick blinked down at him, lowering his arm. "What do you mean in what suit?" he asked, chuckling a little. "In the Enact."

"Your Enact is scrap metal right now," he said pointedly.

"Well… not _my_ Enact, obviously," Patrick said. "But there are plenty more," he waved a hand. "Just get me a nice, shiny new machine and I'll be ready for them!" he puffed out his chest. "I'll show those Celestial Being guys!"

"Patrick—"

"I'm the Ace of the AEU!" Patrick shouted, proclaiming his title as far as he could.

"Patrick," the Captain tried to interrupt.

"No, what," Patrick flung out an arm as his other hand covered his chest. "You're going to try to keep me from flying? Just you try! I'm Patrick Colasaur! I've flown over five thousand test flights, I've completed over four thousand simulations, I've won over two thousand mock battles. There's no one else who even comes close to my test scores and you know it!"

The Captain sighed.

"No, tell me," Patrick demanded, indignant that his hard earned reputation seemed to be in question after everything he had done. "Who else can compete with me, huh?"

"Alright, you've made your point, Patrick," the Captain said wearily. "But the point still stands that what you did this morning was ill-advised and—"

"What did you expect me to do?" Patrick asked. "Run away? Like a coward? I was right there in my suit," he pointed with one hand, "he was right there in his," he pointed with the other. "That's how battles are supposed to be fought! And it's not like anyone else was around to fight it…"

The Captain stared hard at Patrick.

Just as he was opening his mouth, however, there was a knock at the door. Three people carrying various pieces of equipment were pressing inside the room until the Captain got up and blocked their way.

"I said no reporters," he said, trying to shoo them out the door. "Come on, everybody out."

"No, but we have to—" one of the two women said as they all started getting pushed backward.

"Aww, but Captain!" Patrick protested from the bed.

"You don't have to do anything here," the Captain said. "I'm in charge here and there are no reporters allowed."

"Excuse me," the other said as a bag of equipment knocked her in the face. She grabbed hold of the doorway so that they couldn't be thrown out completely. "Murad, can you get the—?"

"On it," the cameraman grunted, trying to reach for his terminal without being able to extricate himself from the tangle.

The Captain was frowning now. "I said," he ground out as he stared down the three of them in the doorway, "no reporters. This is a hospital, now leave this man alone."

"We can't!" the first woman said. "We have orders to—"

"I don't care what your orders are. I don't care what network you work for. Now you're going to get out of here before I—"

A terminal popped up out of the tangle, stopping just centimeters away from the Captain's face.

"What is this?" he finally asked, voice strained.

"What is it?" Patrick asked from the bed, starting to climb out before he remembered that he was under the strictest of orders not to leave the bed until the doctor came back. Instead, he tried to peer over the Captain's shoulders to see what had made him stop.

"You can talk to the man in charge if you don't believe us," the second woman said, sandwiched somewhere between the others.

The Captain snatched the terminal out of the man's hand and pressed down on the button harder than he needed to, putting it to his ear as it rang and waving the trio of reporters out into the hallway as he followed.

"Hello? Yes, this is Colonel Sonome of the AEU. There are a couple of cameramen here trying to— Yes. Yes, they said they were acting on orders from— yes. No, no, sir, I—" he glanced up at the reporters, who stared back at him.

"And they thought this was a _good idea_?" he asked, incredulously. "Right, yes, of course, sir. Right away, sir."

The call terminated before he had a chance to end it. He held the terminal out, a little numbly, and the cameraman took it.

"Well?" one of the women asked, shifting the camera against her shoulder.

The Captain shook his head defeatedly and opened the door again, waving them inside.

The three of them filed past him, filling up the scarce empty space of the hospital room with bodies and equipment.

Patrick watched them with wide eyes. "What's going on?" he asked, grabbing the pillow from the foot of the bed as one of them scooted around to turn off the television.

"We're here to interview you," one of them said, digging a slim microphone out of her black shoulder bag and handing it to the woman who sat down in the chair that the Captain had previously occupied.

The Captain was sandwiched between them and the door at the back of the room, looking supremely uncomfortable as he crammed himself into the corner behind the cameraman for a little more breathing room.

Patrick stared between them all, momentarily at a loss for words as the woman in the chair switched on the microphone and tapped it. "I—"

At the cameraman's nod, she flipped open to a page in her notebook and looked up at him expectantly. "Well," she asked, "you _are_ Patrick Colasaur, aren't you?"

He blinked.

"The Ace of the AEU?"

For a moment, he continued to stare at her, but then he sat up straight in his hospital bed, the blinking monitors, the still-cold bands around his arms and legs, the nodes attached to his chest, and the styrofoam wedge of a pillow forgotten as he turned his entire attention to the woman sitting just below him.

And Patrick _grinned_.


End file.
